THE CHINESE YUAN? A BOLD MOVE!, By Ikechukwu Obi

Hehehehe! I’ve started learning Mandarin o! I wrote that as it sounds… I never reach level of my oga Ja’afar Ja’afar who now writes the Chinese Mandarin script. With the way Nigeria is going, you’re gonna need a grasp of the language of China if you’re to fit into the future.

Yes, Gen. Buhari has officially entered Nigeria into deeper economic intercourse with the Chinese. The decision to denominate part of our external reserves in Chinese Yuan (instead of the US dollar) is indicative of closer collaboration between the two economies.

Now, I won’t pretend I know the deeper economic implications of what they call currency swap but for whatever it’s worth, I think this is a very bold move by the Buhari Presidency and I must say that this type of decisive actions in times of crisis shows a willingness to effect a change. I’ve listened to more than a dozen analysts speak mumbo-jumbo economic terms and i’ve read up on the matter and I think that insofar as the move towards the Chinese has any benefits at all, Gen. Buhari must be commended for showing the political will to change the status quo and reset the system, also for trying something else where the old system is proving problematic. To me, that is leadership.

Our romance with the United States of America went sour in the Jonathan administration for reasons yet unclear and that gave many of us opportunity to re-examine our gains in that relationship. Sadly, the American overbearing attitude towards countries like Nigeria rubs off raw on people like yours sincerely.

And now, the Chinese. I’ll leave the economics of the realingment to the experts but one thing about the Chinese is that they tend to leave your local politics for you and prefer to do straight business. They don’t exhibit cultural or political imperialism; they won’t blackmail you to devalue your currency; won’t bully you to enact gay marriage laws; won’t pressure you to practise democracy they way they do. For the Chinese, it’s just business.

Or so I hope.

Well, if you believe an adaptation of Karl Marx theory that whoever controls the economic structure controls every other thing, you will be cautious about the Chinese offers…

Anyway, I pray Buhari is astute enough to make Nigeria’s interests paramount in all dealings and manoeuvres.